I'm a gamer from way back, started DMing in the late 70s/early 80s. I always thought it would be neat to have a computer program for mapping, since I'm not much of an artist freehand (or as my Dad says, "all I can draw is flies"). I've looked through the pages here from time to time, always thinking "one of these days, it would be nice to join".

I've been drooling over Dundjinni and Campaign Cartographer for years, and finally decided to take the plunge and buy a mapping program. I originally decided on Dundjinni, because I had tried the demo version previously, and the store was back online. As it turns out, my PayPal was charged for the program, but I never got a download link or registration. I put in a complaint with PayPal, which I am currently waiting for resolution on (apparently this isn't the first or only time this happened, so the store is largely hit or miss - mentioning it here, as it may be relevant to the community). :sad:

The reason for this story; however, is that I was bitten by the map bug, so I went ahead and purchased the Profantasy World Builder Bundle (Campaign Cartographer 3, Dungeon Designer 3, City Designer 3, and Fractal Terrains 3). If I can figure out how to use them, I'll be one happy camper...LOL. I've done some playing with Fractal Terrains 3, so far, and am looking forward to getting more experience with all of them. I'm also looking forward to spending some more time in the forums as a registered member! :D

RedSatyr

(P.S. The link to the quick start guide to mapping is returning a 404 error, not sure if it's the site or something to do with the Korean ISP (which does strange things from time to time))

Thanks for the link, Vellum! Sadly, though, once I started looking, the links for CC3 in that post are dead as well. :sad:

Brian Michaluk

12-10-2012, 01:39 PM

For dundjinni if you go into their forum and make a post about not getting the download link they can hook you up manually. Dundjinni I find wonderfully easy to make beautiful dungeon level maps and building level. though it can be one heck of a processor pig

CC3 handles maps a totally different way and its way easier on the CPU and makes large scale and city maps wonderfully.

Heres the best way to start into CC3 Map Making Made Easy - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/feed/UC6YZiP9vTmt8rEpraPEfrIg)

arsheesh

12-10-2012, 08:40 PM

Welcome to the Guild Red Satyr! There are a few members of the Guild that do amazing work here with the programs you've mentioned. In fact, Clerecon recently created a tutorial here (http://www.cartographersguild.com/tutorials-how/20230-make-town-cd3.html) on the topic of town creation that may be of use to you. I wish you all the best in your new adventure.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

RedSatyr

12-11-2012, 05:13 AM

Thanks for the link, Brian! I'm sure that will make things a lot easier to get my head around!

The problem with Dundjinni is that because the purchase never "completed" on the Dundjinni side, there's nothing they can do for me (Kepli and Bogie have both put an update in on the "Read This First" post about it). If I should get the software, I'll be right back here to mention it; however, as I'm not the first person this has happened to recently, I'm not holding my breath that I'll ever get a copy of the program. I have had my eye on the CC3 for a long time, but was always put off by the price (wanted to jump in with both feet and buy the whole shebang at once, but talked myself down for the actual purchase). I've played some with the Fractal Terrain program, and have enjoyed that so far. From what I've seen in the gallery, it looks like the output on the dungeon maps is somewhat similar to Dundjinni (at least in some cases). Have you found that to be the case?

Arsheesh, thank you for the welcome, and the link to Clerecon's tutorial! I'll be checking it out as soon as I have a couple of minutes to rub together. (Today has been Christmas shopping, and will be wrapping and getting gifts ready to post this evening. I am running so late this year!).

Brian Michaluk

12-11-2012, 12:52 PM

Thanks for the link, Brian! I'm sure that will make things a lot easier to get my head around!

The problem with Dundjinni is that because the purchase never "completed" on the Dundjinni side, there's nothing they can do for me (Kepli and Bogie have both put an update in on the "Read This First" post about it). If I should get the software, I'll be right back here to mention it; however, as I'm not the first person this has happened to recently, I'm not holding my breath that I'll ever get a copy of the program. I have had my eye on the CC3 for a long time, but was always put off by the price (wanted to jump in with both feet and buy the whole shebang at once, but talked myself down for the actual purchase). I've played some with the Fractal Terrain program, and have enjoyed that so far. From what I've seen in the gallery, it looks like the output on the dungeon maps is somewhat similar to Dundjinni (at least in some cases). Have you found that to be the case?

Arsheesh, thank you for the welcome, and the link to Clerecon's tutorial! I'll be checking it out as soon as I have a couple of minutes to rub together. (Today has been Christmas shopping, and will be wrapping and getting gifts ready to post this evening. I am running so late this year!).

no problem dude those training videos are like instantly having months of experience dumped into your head lol

I personally recommend the tome of ultimate mapping as well I really enjoyed running through the tutorials. the basic CC3 chapter is the biggest part of the book then its got a chapter for every add on.

the results of every dungeon map I have done in cc3 has so far taken longer and not been as good a quality as the ones I can crank out in dundjinni but I have used it for a looooot more years.

RedSatyr

12-12-2012, 02:55 AM

Brian,

I'm almost certainly going to wind up purchasing most of the things they have on offer for CC3 over time. Your recommendation for the Tome of Ultimate Mapping may just wind up making it my next purchase, though!

Brian Michaluk

12-12-2012, 12:56 PM

This convo made me end up retrying a building in CC3 and after more effort I think I got it down a bit better myself I am going to upload my latest stab at it to my gallery

RedSatyr

12-13-2012, 08:06 AM

Heheh. I actually went through a number of the videos yesterday (when I was supposed to be doing something else..;) ). I did a quick room, and it came out ok, but I suddenly realized that I couldn't remember some of the things he had done in the videos (like resizing walls and such...). I'm planning on going through the videos again, but this time with CC3 open and doing everything step by step as he does it to figure out where things are.

RedSatyr

12-13-2012, 08:10 AM

For what it's worth, I checked out the gallery, and the island came out quite well. I'm not sure what you are talking about in regards to having trouble with the corner joints? That building looked great, though...:)

Brian Michaluk

12-13-2012, 11:38 AM

oh if you look at the top left corner of each that's where the line joins and the overlap causes it to look like lego. there's a way to manually break and join the lines but I have to re research that part.

Building the map using the wall's alone and not the rooms function is what made the difference for me waaaay nicer result in CC3 for me with building level stuff now :D

When using the room function you don't get those weird artefacts in the drawing but having rooms share inner walls does not work which is how most of my designs go.

I use a lot of my maps on my campaign websites so I like them to look as good as possible lol

Dargoth RPG World | Wix.com (http://brianmichaluk.wix.com/dargoth)

RavensBluff | Wix.com (http://brianmichaluk.wix.com/ravensbluff)

RedSatyr

12-13-2012, 12:49 PM

Ok, I see what you're talking about now, although it wasn't noticeable to me before you pointed it out. I just did a quick one on mine, and I see exactly what you mean... What I did to fix it is just lay another section of wall on top of that corner only, and it covered the overlap like it was never there. If there's another way to do it, though, I'd love to hear it...:) I'm hoping to have some time either tomorrow or this weekend to really take them out for a spin!

RedSatyr

12-18-2012, 05:20 AM

Brian, I played with this some more as I went through the tutorials, and worked my way through the users manual. I thought I had something with the "trim to intersect" button, but I couldn't get it to work. A closer look at the solution of laying another wall section over the top of the messed up join shows that it is workable, but if you look closely enough at the map, it's noticeable that you've done it, because the stone work isn't uniform. The only thing I've found thus far is that if you can make your join along a straight line it *seems* to join seamlessly.

RedSatyr

12-18-2012, 06:11 AM

Okay, at the risk of being beaten for continually posting on this, I actually found the solution on the CC3 forums. The easiest way is to go to the advanced setting in the draw tool, and click the closed radio button to make it a closed polygon. For existing walls, right click on the explode button, choose "path to polygon", select the broken wall, and then right click and "do it". It will close the polygon for you.

I've been wrestling with this since you brought it up, because I didn't want to start mapping something knowing that there was a gap in the wall. LOL. Now that my mind is somewhat calmed, I can try to make something permanent, rather than playing with walls... This message has been brought to you by my perfectionist streak/OCD. :)

Here's the link to the page that discussed that fix...
ProFantasy Community Forum - Walls not completing correctly (http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=1886&page=1#Item_0)

Brian Michaluk

12-18-2012, 11:51 AM

Okay, at the risk of being beaten for continually posting on this, I actually found the solution on the CC3 forums. The easiest way is to go to the advanced setting in the draw tool, and click the closed radio button to make it a closed polygon. For existing walls, right click on the explode button, choose "path to polygon", select the broken wall, and then right click and "do it". It will close the polygon for you.

I've been wrestling with this since you brought it up, because I didn't want to start mapping something knowing that there was a gap in the wall. LOL. Now that my mind is somewhat calmed, I can try to make something permanent, rather than playing with walls... This message has been brought to you by my perfectionist streak/OCD. :)

Here's the link to the page that discussed that fix...
ProFantasy Community Forum - Walls not completing correctly (http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=1886&page=1#Item_0)

Ahh cool I knew I saw something in all the material about fixing that but I have been unable to get to my mapping in the last two weeks. Thanks for the link I will have to print that one.

Glad your enjoying CC3 I have greatly loved the large scale maps I can produce from it and getting the building / dungeon level stuff going is totally icing for the cake.

RedSatyr

12-18-2012, 12:43 PM

You're very welcome; glad I could help!

I am enjoying playing with the programs. I also found another "solution", the corner command. You have to enter it from the command prompt, but it also works to fix that (or if you put two walls together at different times).

I've been playing with Fractal Terrains tonight. I've got the beginnings of a globe/world, but the temperature zones and are a bit tricky. Very absorbing, though.

Brian Michaluk

12-19-2012, 12:18 PM

Fractal is one of the packs I have not gotten yet as the maps I wanted to create are based on hand drawn ones I started on almost 20 years ago lol. Looks like it would be very cool for making some really realistic scratch maps though

RedSatyr

12-19-2012, 12:41 PM

I'm enjoying it when I can tell what it is I'm doing with it. I had to go back to the map tutorials that Joe Sweeney did to keep from pulling what's left of my hair out...LOL

I love the fact that it randomizes the rainfall, temps and such, as that's handy, but trying to get it to conform to my vision of the world I want to build has been much more tricky. I've always wanted to build a fantasy world, but I'm not too talented on the drawing part, and coastlines are especially heinous.

What would be cool would be when the program makes an interesting landmass to be able to export it, and then import a series of interesting landmasses to create the world by placing them individually on the map, but I haven't figured that one out (if it's even possible).

Brian Michaluk

12-19-2012, 01:16 PM

I'm enjoying it when I can tell what it is I'm doing with it. I had to go back to the map tutorials that Joe Sweeney did to keep from pulling what's left of my hair out...LOL

I love the fact that it randomizes the rainfall, temps and such, as that's handy, but trying to get it to conform to my vision of the world I want to build has been much more tricky. I've always wanted to build a fantasy world, but I'm not too talented on the drawing part, and coastlines are especially heinous.

What would be cool would be when the program makes an interesting landmass to be able to export it, and then import a series of interesting landmasses to create the world by placing them individually on the map, but I haven't figured that one out (if it's even possible).

Oh I think I read some info on doing that kind of thing in the profantasy forum somewhere when I was browsing.

Fractal is one of the things I will be getting later on for sure anyhow I am pretty sure I will own all the add on's eventually lol I already have about 70% of them :D

RedSatyr

12-19-2012, 07:39 PM

Oh I think I read some info on doing that kind of thing in the profantasy forum somewhere when I was browsing.

Fractal is one of the things I will be getting later on for sure anyhow I am pretty sure I will own all the add on's eventually lol I already have about 70% of them :D

If you come across that info again, I'd greatly appreciate it if you post a link to it. Looking for information in the forums is like mining for diamonds with your eyes closed sometimes. You call it this, but they call it that, and the search engine doesn't find what you're looking for...LOL

RedSatyr

12-20-2012, 10:35 AM

Did some more digging and found how to put stuff from FT3 into CC3. Now I'm playing with the best format for the imports...:)